big screen - two channel system enough for dialog?


If I have a large screen (100"+), will I need a dedicated center channel to hear dialog well??

My priority is music, and movies are mostly drama and comedies where dialog is critical. Surround effects are NOT a priority. Many folks here believe you can get much better value from 2 channel systems, but I am getting older and dialog intelligibility is key.

I am concerned about blu-rays needing to downmix from 5 to 2 channels and with such a big screen and separation of my mains, will two channels just make the dialog more diffuse??
tswei99
.
I've gone through 3 or 4 center speakers, and was never satisfied with any of them, due to their inability to render the human voice as well as my L/R tower speakers. I did not find any improvement in dialog intelligibility when using a center speaker. The biggest drawback with all of the speakers I tried was that they could not reproduce the baritone quality of male voices, no matter what crossover settings I tried.

Agreed. That's why I use a full-range tower laying horizontally as my center channel. Anything smaller was inadequate and a waste of time.
.
.
Marakanetz, the link below should give you an idea of the
room and the layout. When the room is my everyday living
room, the couches are along the walls. When I get ready to
watch movies, I move the couches so that they face the
screen. I sit 30 feet from the screen. You can see the
center channel on the floor at the bottom of the screen, I
place it on a platform that raises it two feet off the floor
at movie time. The room is 22 ft wide, 70 ft long and 22
feet high

http://forum.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/fr.pl?vhome&1178590685
.
I'm in the camp of use the center, and surrounds for home theater. Way back in the day, I started with just to channel for movies, and TV. I can't say I didn't enjoy it, I did. Very much back then. Mitches comment about planes flying past is exactly right. There are so many things going on in movies that only having two speakers will limit the experience.

I built a new from the ground up about 6 years ago. (119" screen, and Sony PJ) Regardles of what you do speaker wise, here are a couple things I would suggest.

I assume you will be using a PJ. I ran 3" PVC, 2" would work, from behind my equipment rack, (it's buried in the wall of course) up to where my PJ is mounted. When you make corners, don't use 90 degree elbows. It's better to use 2 45 degree elbows. It makes pulling wire through alot easier. Always pull an extra wire through so if you want to change, or add, you have an easy way to do it. If you use it to pull something new in, pull another extra one through. (since you will be pulling your spare out with the new one)

Even if you go the two channel route, run speaker wires to the back of your room. Just put a blank cover plate on the openings, and forget it's there. The last thing you want is to decide you would like to try the surround later and not have the wires in place. Speaker wire is cheap enough, don't limit your options. I've done some retro installs, and it's a real pain running wires through the attic, or basement, and trying to end up in the walls later. Try to cover any possible future changes now.